Dick York

Dick York
Dick York

Dick York
Born Richard Allen York
September 4, 1928(1928-09-04)
Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.
Died February 20, 1992(1992-02-20) (aged 63)
East Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation Actor
Years active 1947–84
Spouse Joan Alt (1951–92) (his death)

Richard Allen "Dick" York (September 4, 1928 – February 20, 1992) was an American actor. He is best remembered for his role as the first Darrin Stephens on the ABC television fantasy sitcom Bewitched. His best known motion picture role was as teacher Bertram Cates in the 1960 film Inherit The Wind.

Contents

Early life

Born Richard Allen York in Fort Wayne, Indiana, York grew up in Chicago, where a Catholic nun first recognized his vocal promise. He began his career at age 15 as the star of the CBS radio program That Brewster Boy. He also appeared in hundreds of other radio shows and instructional films before heading to New York City, where he acted on Broadway in Tea and Sympathy and Bus Stop. He performed with stars including Paul Muni and Joanne Woodward in live television broadcasts and with Janet Leigh, Jack Lemmon, and Glenn Ford in movies, including My Sister Eileen, and Cowboy.

It was while filming the 1959 movie They Came to Cordura with Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth that York would receive a permanently disabling back injury. In York's own words: "Gary Cooper and I were propelling a handcar carrying several 'wounded' men down [the] railroad track. I was on the bottom stroke of this sort of teeter-totter mechanism that made the handcar run. I was just lifting the handle up as the director yelled 'cut!' and one of the 'wounded' cast members reached up and grabbed the handle. I was suddenly, jarringly, lifting his entire weight off the flatbed—one hundred and eighty pounds or so. The muscles along the right side of my back tore. They just snapped and let loose. And that was the start of it all: the pain, the painkillers, the addiction, the lost career."

In 1960 he played the role of Bertram Cates (modelled on John Thomas Scopes, of "Monkey Trial" fame) in the film version of Inherit the Wind.[1]

York went on to star with Gene Kelly as Tom Colwell in the ABC television comedy/drama Going My Way, and to appear in dozens of episodes of now-classic TV shows, including Justice, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Wagon Train, and CBS's The Twilight Zone and Route 66.

Bewitched

York is best known as the first actor to play Darrin Stephens in the 1960s sitcom Bewitched. The show was a huge success and York was nominated for an Emmy in 1968. Because of his back injury, which sometimes caused him to seize up in debilitating pain in later years, the scripts for some of his final episodes on Bewitched were written around his being in bed or on the couch for the entire episode. One day, during the fifth season of the sitcom: "I was too sick to go on. I had a temperature of one hundred and five, full of strong antibiotics, for almost ten days. I went to work that day but I was sick. I lay in my dressing room after being in make-up, waiting to be called on the set. They knew I was feeling pretty rotten, and they tried to give me time to rest. I kept having chills. This was the middle of the summer and I was wearing a sheepskin jacket and I was chilling. I was shaking all over." Then, while sitting on a scaffolding with Maurice Evans, being lit for a special effects scene: "They were setting an inky - that's a little tiny spot that I was suppose[clarification needed] to be just flickering over my eyes...that flickering, flickering flickering made me feel weird. And I'm sitting on this platform up in the air...and I turned to Gibby, who was just down below, and I said, "Gibby, I think I have to get down." He started to help me down and that's the last thing I remember until I woke up on the floor. That's about all I remember of the incident...and I'd managed to bite a very large hole in the side of my tongue before they could pry my teeth apart."[attribution needed]

From his hospital bed, director Bill Asher asked him what he wanted to do. "Do you want to quit?" "I said 'If it's all right with you, Billy.'" With that, York resigned from the show to devote himself to recovery. From season 6 onwards (until the series ended in 1972), the Darrin Stephens role was played by actor Dick Sargent. Dick Sargent was offered the role of Darrin in the beginning, but turned it down to do a short-lived sitcom called Broadside.[2]

Later years

Dick York in 1983 on an episode of Simon and Simon.

Largely bedridden, York battled not only his back pain but an addiction to prescription pain killers.

In his memoir, The Seesaw Girl and Me, published posthumously, he describes the struggle to break his addiction and to come to grips with the loss of his career. The book is in large part a love letter to his wife, Joan (née Alt), the seesaw girl of the title, who stuck with him through the hard times. York eventually beat his addiction and tried to revive his career. He appeared on several prime-time TV shows including Simon and Simon and Fantasy Island.

York, once a heavy smoker, spent his final years battling emphysema. While bedridden in his Rockford, Michigan, home, he founded Acting for Life, a private charity to help the homeless and others in need. Using his telephone as his pulpit, York motivated politicians, business people, and the general public to contribute supplies and money.[3]

Despite his suffering, York said, "I've been blessed. I have no complaints. I've been surrounded by people in radio, on stage and in motion pictures and television who love me. The things that have gone wrong have been simply physical things."[4]

York died from complications of emphysema at Blodgett Hospital in East Grand Rapids on February 20, 1992. He was 63 years old.

York is buried in Plainfield Cemetery in Belmont, Michigan.[5]

Filmography

Film
Year Film Role Other notes
1945 Insomnia Lucky Short film for U.S. Navy
1947 Shy Guy Philip Norton Short film
1950 Last Date Nick Short film
1951 How Friendly Are You? Phil Short film
1955 My Sister Eileen Ted 'Wreck' Loomis
1955 Three Stripes in the Sun Cpl. Neeby Muhlendorf
1957 Operation Mad Ball Cpl. Bohun
1958 Cowboy Charlie, Trailhand
1959 The Last Blitzkrieg Sgt. Ludwig
1959 They Came to Cordura Pvt. Renziehausen
1960 Inherit the Wind Bertram T. Cates
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1955 Goodyear Television Playhouse John Randolph Episode: Visit to a Small Planet
1955 The Philco Television Playhouse Andy Episode: Incident in July
1955 Justice Episode: Fatal Payment
1955–1957 Kraft Television Theatre Episode: Million Dollar Rookie
Episode: Mock Trial
Episode: Ride into Danger
1956 Playwrights '56 Grayson Episode: Honor
1956 Eye on New York Lt. Mac Hartman Episode: Night of the Auk
1956–1958 Studio One George Fox
George Weston
Captain Jay Hellman
Episode: A Man's World
Episode: The Weston Strain
Episode: The Enemy Within
1957 The Kaiser Aluminum Hour Edward Gillis Episode: A Real Fine Cutting Edge
1957–1962 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Manny Coe
Norman Logan
J.J. Bunce
Ralph Jones
Tom Barton
Herbert J. Wiggam
Episode: Vicious Circle
Episode: The Dusty Drawer
Episode: The Blessington Method
Episode: The Doubtful Doctor
Episode: You Can't Be a Little Girl All Your Life
Episode: The Twelve Hour Caper
1958 The United States Steel Hour Gordon Bates Episode: Beaver Patrol
Climax! Gordon Bates Episode: Shooting for the Moon
1958–1959 Playhouse 90 Scott Arlen
Tom
Matthew Sherwood
Episode: The Last Clear Chance
Episode: The Time of Your Life
Episode: Made in Japan
Episode: Out of Dust
1958, 1960 The Millionaire Ken Leighton
Sandy Newell
Episode: The Ken Leighton Story
Episode: Millionaire Sandy Newell
1960 The Untouchables Ernie Torrance Episode: The White Slavers
Alcoa Theatre Corporal James Sloan Episode: The Glorious Fourth
Stagecoach West Webb Crawford Episode: Three Wise Men
1960-1961 The Twilight Zone Capt. Phil Riker
Hector Poole
Episode: The Purple Testament
Episode: A Penny for Your Thoughts
1961 Naked City Charles Colano Episode: Bullets Cost Too Much
The DuPont Show with June Allyson Lt. James Whitney Episode: School of the Soldier
The Americans Bolick Episode: The War Between the States
General Electric Theater Ashael Miller Episode: A Musket for Jessica
Adventures in Paradise Markham Jones Episode: The Reluctant Hero
The Outlaws Sam Nichols Episode: Night Riders
Dr. Kildare Harry Benton Episode: The Lonely Ones
Frontier Circus Jeb Randall Episode: The Shaggy Kings
1961, 1963 Rawhide Frank Price
Elwood P. Gilroy
Episode: Incident of the Broken Word
Episode: Incident at Confidence Creek
1961–1964 Wagon Train Willie Pettigrew
Charley Shutup
Ben Mitchell
Episode: The Clementine Jones Story
Episode: The Charley Shutup Story
Episode: The Michael Malone Story
1962 Thriller Fred Bancroft Episode: The Incredible Doktor Markesan
1962–1963 Going My Way Tom Colwell
1963 Insight Episode: Breakthrough
Route 66 Lieutenant School Episode: What a Shining Young Man Was Our Gallant Lieutenant
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour Sheriff Will Pearce Episode: Terror at Northfield
The Virginian Jeff Tolliver Episode: Stopover in a Western Town
1964–1969 Bewitched Darrin Stephens
1965 The Flintstones Darrin Stephens Episode: Samantha
Inherit the Wind Bertram T. Cates NBC TV-Movie
1983 Simon & Simon Martin Donlevy Episode: Too Much of a Good Thing
1984 Fantasy Island Episode: Sweet Life/Games People Play

Awards and nominations

Emmy Awards

  • 1968: Nominated, "Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Comedy Series" - Bewitched

References

  1. ^ New York Times
  2. ^ Keehnen, Owen. "Interview with Dick Sargent, 1992". No More "Straight Man", Dick Sargent is Out and Proud. http://www.harpiesbizarre.com/sargent_interview.htm. Retrieved 2011-08-10. 
  3. ^ Secter, Bob (1989-02-08). "Bewitched by a Cause : Dick York Is Dying of Emphysema but He Lives to Help the Homeless". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1989-02-08/news/vw-2079_1_dick-york. Retrieved 2011-07-12. 
  4. ^ Douglas, John (April 1992). "Dick York of Bewitched - A Farewell Interview". bewitched.net. http://www.bewitched.net/filmfax.htm. Retrieved 2010-04-08. 
  5. ^ Plainfield Cemetery, Kent County Michigan (Jul 09, 1998). "Dick York's grave". FindaGrave.com. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3135. Retrieved 2011-01-01. 
4. The Seesaw Girl and Me, by Dick York, pgs. 15-16, 100-105

External links


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